Cons:Owners of the company are absolute con-artists with a long and sad history of pyramid schemes and regulatory action.

Thanks for reading today’s review of Day Trade Academy

Before I begin, nearly all of the information for this review was provided to TradingSchools.Org by the Utah Department of Securities, the CFTC, and a former employee of Day Trade Academy.

What is the Day Trading Academy? In a nutshell, the company is advertising a Forex day trading education, with the opportunity to receive a fully funded trading account of $100,000.

However, like all things trading related, you have to read the fine print. And you have to ask a multitude of questions. The following are the exact details of what the company is offering.

Trader Executive Program

The Trader Executive Program has a sign-up fee of $15,595. With an additional fee of $327 per month. Included is a secret indicator, twice per week (1 hour) coaching for 12 weeks, and access to recorded webinars.

A student must complete 12 weeks of educational materials, and an additional 6 weeks of successfully trading on a Forex simulator.

If the student trades successfully with a simulator and meets an undefined performance threshold, then the company will award the student with a $3k Forex account.

The student gets to keep 80% of profits.

Trader Pro Funding Program

The Pro Funding Program has a sign-up fee of $7,195. With an additional fee of $327 per month. Included is a secret indicator, twice per week (1 hour) coaching for 9 weeks, and access to recorded webinars.

A student must complete 9 weeks of educational materials, and an additional 6 weeks of successfully trading on a Forex simulator.

If the student trades successfully with a simulator and meets an undefined performance threshold, then the company will award the student with a $2k Forex account.

The student gets to keep 60% of profits.

Trader Pro Program with NO funding option

The Trader Pro program does not include the opportunity for a funded account. The student is required to pay $4,195 upfront and $327 per month. Included is twice per week (1 hour) coaching for 6 weeks.

Included are educational materials and recorded webinars.

Trader Lite Program

The Trader Lite program costs $876 per month and gives access to only educational materials.

What about the $100k fully funded account?

TradingSchools.Org contacted the company and asked about the supposed promise for a fully funded $100k Forex trading account. The company replied that any additional funds must be provided by the student, either by additional deposit or through any profits the trader earned.

Now let’s talk about whom owns this company.

Kevin Jones and Mathew Poll

I would like to introduce Kevin Jones and Mathew Poll. Both are longtime pyramid/Ponzi scheme hustlers and active members of the Mormon church.

Professional Forex Trader?

Kevin Jones got his start as a door-to-door salesman. According to his social media profile, he managed a team of 25 door-to-door salesmen that specialized in the usual door-to-door gimmickry; aluminum siding, kitchen knives, vacuum cleaners, and soap.

Eventually, he moved into pyramid marketing schemes that included selling residential phone services, and then eventually Forex trading educational products.

According to the former employee of Day Trade Academy, Kevin Jones has a long time friend and business partner named Matthew Poll.

Forex Trading Coach?

Mathew Poll got his start as an insurance salesman. He eventually joined Kevin selling a pyramid scheme named Telcel Solutions. The following video describes this “Telecom Business Opportunity.” Basically, spend $12,500 for the opportunity to sell other people a piece of the pyramid for $12,500.

A History Of Pyramid Schemes

According to an interview that TradingSchools.Org conducted with the Utah Division of Securities–they are very familiar Kevin Jones and Mathew Poll.

In fact, they were both ordered to Cease and Desist operations for a Forex scheme named Freedom Wealth Group. Essentially, Freedom Wealth Group was a pyramid/Ponzi scheme where Sucker A would convince Sucker B that Freedom Wealth Group had a magic trading indicator that would solve all of their money problems. Simply place the indicator on a Forex chart, copy the trades, and then money would magically appear in their Forex trading account.

As with all pyramid/Ponzi-type schemes, you will eventually run out of Suckers. The people at the top of the pyramid get paid, while the people on the bottom of the pyramid get hustled. Some of the people that were hustled by Kevin Jones and Mathew Poll eventually filed a complaint with the State of Utah.

After the State of Utah figured out that the entire operation was a pyramid investment scheme, they ordered Freedom Wealth Group to cease operations. You can see an archived copy of the Freedom Wealth Group website here. So what did Kevin and Mathew do next? Just start a new company and keep doing the same thing!

Another Forex Pyramid Scheme

Within a matter of weeks from being busted for Freedom Wealth Group, they quickly formed a new company named Tactic Trading. But this time, they took things a step further. Instead of offering a magical trading indicator, they ‘white labeled’ the Sierra Chart trading platform and renamed it Green Chart.

In addition, they formed a partnership with an offshore, unregulated Forex broker that was operating illegally within the United States. Unbeknownst to customers, they received a kickback from each new account and a commission percentage of the entire trading volume. All of this is highly illegal in the United States.

Sure enough…the Utah Division of Securities started to receive a batch of new complaints that were remarkably similar to the Freedom Wealth Group complaints. In a nutshell, people were spending thousands of dollars for the Green Chart trading software, magical trading indicators, an educational product, and the opportunity to ‘sell’ the pyramid program to family and friends. The Utah Division of Securities was not impressed. They were once again shut down.

So now, we are talking about the original scheme of Freedom Wealth Group, that continues with Tactic Trading. Both shut down. A simple Google search for ‘Tactic Trade/Freedom Wealth Group’ will reveal page after page of online complaints from people that were scammed.

So what does Kevin Jones and Mathew Poll do next? You guessed it. Create yet another Forex trading and educational company mish-mashed with the flavor of pyramid. But by this time, they have figured out how to confuse and delay the State of Utah. Just create a bunch of different Forex trading companies! Swamp the securities regulators with a multitude of companies.

An Egypt full of pyramid schemes

The following is a list of known companies that these hustlers are currently using. But, by no means is this a complete list. This is only what we were able to easily find. There are probably much more. So let’s take a look at what TradingSchools.Org has been able to track down:

Its pretty clever how they essentially, decentralized the operation into a multitude of smaller businesses. This makes enforcement by regulators extremely difficult. Each company is a separate enforcement action. What can the State of Utah do?

Here comes the CFTC

At this point, it has become pretty obvious to the State of Utah that Kevin Jones and Mathew Poll are not going to quit so easily. In addition, the scheme has now branched into all 50 states via job site ‘ad postings’.

Like cancer, these guys just keep spreading out. Time for federal regulators. Time to bring in the “Big Guns.”

On June 5, 2017, the CFTC charged the Forex brokerage known as Tallinex, Kevin Jones, Matthew Poll, and their shell company; General Trader Fulfillment with fraud.

How is it fraud? Glad you asked. According to the CFTC, Tallinex was fraudulently misrepresenting the profits of General Trader Fulfillment students. In other words, Kevin Jones and Mathew Poll were telling potential students that graduates of their trading program were making huge sums of money. And this information was supposedly verified and authenticated by Tallinex.

So think about this a moment…a student wants to become a full-time trader, and he wants that $100k company funded trading account. The trading educator is telling the student that everyone is making huge sums of money and that everything can be verified by simply talking to Tallinex. Of course, Tallinex is located in Estonia and they couldn’t give a damn about US regulators, nor the welfare of the students of Kevin and Matthew. Tallinex just wants new accounts and trading volume, they will say anything.

It’s a sad and pathetic tale. But it takes on a new meaning when a former employee of Kevin and Matthew colorfully describes the poor and pathetic souls that went into debt to purchase the $16k educational program. The person described the victims of Kevin and Matthew as “salt of the earth” type persons. With little resources, usually the working poor, with little understanding of financial instruments.

The Forex Fraud continues…Capital City Markets

None of this fraud works without a Forex broker. And since June 5, 2017…the CFTC effectively eliminated one-leg of the scheme. But as we have learned from the prior history of Kevin Jones and Matthew Poll, they are not going away easily. With skills honed through years of selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door, they know that the next sucker can be found at the next door.

So what do Kevin and Mathew do next? Start a Forex brokerage!

On June 1st, immediately after the CFTC busts Tallinex for fraud and orders them to stop accepting US based customers…a brand new Forex brokerage magically appears! It is named CapitalCityMarkets.com

According to the former employee of Kevin and Matthew, they are the buttholes behind Capital City Markets.

But Kevin and Matthew are pretty smart guys. The company is registered in the lovely hamlet of Vanuatu. An island in the middle of the South Pacific. A place that is known for extreme secrecy and completely out of the reach of the CFTC.

US investors, please say hello to your new Forex brokers.

The audacity of these scammers. It is simply amazing how persistent they continue with this scam.

Wrapping Things Up

These are the types of reviews that really fluster me. A tremendous amount of time goes into researching how the fraud is being executed. You can track down and expose the person and the company. But what do you do when they simply create a new company name?

And then blast ‘help wanted’ ads all over the internet? Luring in the next batch of suckers.

‘According to the CFTC, Tallinex was fraudulently misrepresenting the profits of General Trader Fulfillment students. In other words, Kevin Jones and Mathew Poll were telling potential students that graduates of their trading program were making huge sums of money. And this information was supposedly verified and authenticated by Tallinex.’ ‘supposedly’? Would be good to expand on this, it’s not a reliable statement as it stands. Did you contact Tallinex and ask for their side of the story? As for the offshore thing, CTFC/NFA and the politicians are just trying to stifle competition in favour of the futures industry. That’s why… Read more »

Tallinex had no comment. The phone call with Day Trade Academy was even worse. They would pick up the phone, hear my voice, then quickly hang up. Utah regulators are exasperated with these two charlatans. Utah is a pretty small state, everyone knows everyone. Utah is also considered the “Ponzi Scheme Capital of the World” according to the FBI. Google search ‘Utah Get Rich Quick or Investment Scheme‘, and you will find a page after page of ponzi schemes, get rich quick hustlers, pyramid schemes gone bad, etc. Its just crazy. Heck, the founder of the Mormom Church (Joseph Smith)… Read more »

I remember a friend in high school who was a member of the typical methodist/baptist churchs in town. I visited his service once and saw that he seemed happy with it and the congregation. Then a year or so later he mentioned he wasn’t in that church anymore and he and his mother also, had joined the mormons who had ramped up their presence in town. Indeed a weird story with magical stones. The idea of the CFTC/NFA in collusion with politicians in favor of futures is farcical. The recent crackdown on FX brokers like FXCM which was among the… Read more »

I don’t know much about the nuances of forex. I know the basic pairs and the fact that brokers take the other side of your position. Futures on the other hand have a purpose for hedging and some do trade them profitably over the long term. With FX it seems to be harder to find independent traders that make a living from speculating them.

Oh mean, really too much to get into now. The mt4 afilliation retail baiting cesspool could have been arguably said to have been greater than today’s ninjacess. Kind of like the penny slots compared to the futures and stocks 25 cents to multidollar slots. Correct about brokers often taking the other side of the trade often unscrupulously stop hunting or slippage stuffing. There was even an mt4 broker version where these shenanigans could be facilitated where Ninja has their features to change the coloring and naming of accounts and dom’s for sim shamming. I’d suggest folks check out babypips.com or… Read more »

Thanks for the post, very informative. The bank I worked for had an enormous currency desk. These guys were very active trading all day. Obviously that was with institutional money, but I was always intrigued. I almost thought it made sense since you can always look for a pair that was active or trending. Once I heard that brokers needed you to lose then I realized it was rigged against retail to lose for sure. Is it safe to say fx is better suited to swing trading?

Your welcome MikeM. It sounds your coworkers were involved with the real financial currency world. I only had a stint among the other churned folks in the retail forex cesslake. Fortunately the phase no more than a year or so, but then I discovered beachforum next. forexpeacearmy also shows a literal army of their past “reviews” of forex related ad sites, so immense it numbers in the thousands. http://www.forexpeacearmy.com/forex-reviews?page=30&per-page=50 RobB mentions a good point about better to trade forex with a reputable broker that has forex trading under its umberella such as IB or maybe TDA. http://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=759 Not those typical… Read more »

Just my 2 cents worth. I trade Forex via IB, as the way I understand it they use an exchange and you are not competing against your broker. The nice thing about currencies, if you catch them right, they can trend for a long time. Personally I try to look at the macro economic picture. What is a particular country doing and is there currency trading at a current historic value and do I see something that might change that. Like When Euro was trading over 1.4 to dollar I was like this is ridiculous, Americans will not even be… Read more »

That was a nice trade Rob I hope you took it for a nice ride. So you go into a trade with a story to it, not just a technical picture. I stopped trying to scalp for profit a long time ago. Also when I had definable reason to enter a trade, it usually works out better for me which keeps me from over trading.

With currencies yes. The other nice thing about Forex over Futures is you can use micro lots, so you can try out your method live without using insane leverage like in futures. But just like day trading futures if you think you are going to make 5 micro scalps a day with no draw down and 80% + win rate and some insane ROI good luck. The first step to trading is to see the world as it is and not the fantasy world the TR operators preach in order to sucker people out of their money.

“The first step to trading is to see the world as it is and not the fantasy world the TR operators preach in order to sucker people out of their money.” So true!! I wish I could highlight that more in some way. A trader would be surprised if they made personal observations of the market then traded those ideas over time with realistic ROI expectations. You may not have a positive cash flow everyday like a salary, but you may be positive on a monthly basis.

Does the con man have a soul? I doubt it very much. Wow this business of online trading is a sewer that just keeps growing. Hopefully they are not allowed to run their schemes anymore. I can’t understand why someone would pay a fee to trade money they already are in possession of, somewhat similar to TST. People need to educate themselves before getting into bed financially with a company. At the very least do some background checks.

I feel MikeM has come to the realization about this whole snakeoil retail traducation industry RobB. It’s shocking at first to realize the extent then it can be just depressive imo, as review after review and more scammy tricks and evidence surfaces because you realize this may never end as more new people try to find ways to invest or trade their money each month and every year. Those who are lucky enough to have read tradingschools first may still be in kool-aid dream state and will still give choice appealing shams “a chance”. As for this day trade academy… Read more »

dtchurn so true, they seem to be TST on steroids. The shills on their website are also classic. It’s nuts that you pay them to steal your money. It is the equivalent of me paying a mugger to rob me and then say thank you. LOL. This is real life insanity.

It’s just crazy and I couldn’t put it any other way. Absolutely insane that a sizable amount of individuals are out to take what they can from the public. I know this problem with retail always being the last to hold the bag existed since the market had boom and bust cycles, but the online trading vendors are taking it to another level of deceit. Pay me and I will teach you to trade your way to financial freedom. The uninformed are losing money, time and a sense of well being. It is another level of scum when they keep… Read more »